May 10, 2009

SSM: another by Searls

After enjoying "A Guide to San Francisco" so much, not to mention the overall conceit of the book, I went back and started at the beginning of What We Were Doing and Where We Were Going, with "56 Walter Street." This one nods to "Marshlands" by Andre Gide, a story which I was unable to track down today, with via the web or the UIUC library, though I may have just not been looking in the right place. Any hints from anyone on where to find this? I'd love to try to read the "originals" on everything in this book.

Anyway, the story itself. 56 Walter Street is not only the name of the story, but also the novel the main character is working on, as well as his address. Another story about a writer (Giles) though, as Dan said in his comment to my last post, Searls is able to avoid the cliches and really makes it work to his advantage. Giles claims on a number of occasions that he never "copies from real life" but he also says, "You know I never like to talk about what I'm writing," although he just did, and then continues to do so much more. Most everything he says is questionable, and it is also really interesting. Here's one of my favorite passages:

But Simon liked to entertain and he served his guests elaborate, old-fashioned cocktails and cucumber sandwiches. If he was, in short, born at the wrong place and time to attain Waugh or Forster or Powell, he could manage a sort of cross here between Scott Fitzgerald and Belle and Sebastian.

Also, the end of the story gives us the title of the collection itself, which is apparently from Emerson.